May 19, 2012

Tony Vagneur:"It's one of those stories that never got properly told, and it happened so long ago that not many would care — except for the fact that it involved recently deceased Ruth Whyte, multileveled philanthropist to Aspen.

Who the hell was Ruth Whyte, you ask? If you have to ask, you're still a starry-eyed newcomer with a lot to learn about our town. She was the ultimate volunteer, as evidenced by her election as volunteer of the year for the Aspen Ski Club (she was almost a lifetime unpaid secretary there); she received the highly coveted Greg Mace award for volunteerism, was inducted into the 1996 Aspen Hall of Fame, and during nearly a half-century of promoting Aspen, her smiling mug can be spied in almost every official photograph having to do with the Aspen Ski Club, Wintersköl or the World Cup.

Ruth's first visit to Aspen was in 1952, and before the week was over, she was involved with the ski club, helping organize the national championships being held on the mountain. When Ruth finally came to town for good, she was a fresh-faced graduate of the University of Colorado, hired as the Aspen School District's physical education teacher. Breaking ground as the first woman to hold that job since anyone could remember, the challenges were perceived as steep, but Ruth was an athletic woman with a no-B.S. attitude toward her first job out of college.

That, of course, did not change the fact that several smart-assed elementary kids, including yours truly, put her to the test every time we had class. Clearly, I remember one occasion when, pushed to the limit, she threatened me with some horrible disciplinary action, to which I replied, “You can't do that: My dad is president of the school board.” Fury erupted from her quarter, and only by the quickness of youth was I able to outrun what surely would have been justifiable homicide...." (Read more? Click title)

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